As Always
by BananaWombat221
Summary: Carrying on from where Son of Neptune left off, this is what I kind of imagine Mark of Athena to be like...sorry I'm rubbish at summaries. *SORRY, I'M NOT GOING TO BE UPDATING THIS.*
1. Together Again

JASON'S P.O.V

Annabeth was standing on the deck of the Argo II, her blonde curls blowing in the wind. She was staring down at the crowds of Roman campers with mixed emotions running across her face. She had her arms folded and clenched tightly, steely eyes roving over the Romans at the speed of light.

"Looking for Percy?" I said to her quietly.

She gave a small start and looked at me. "Yes," she murmured. Her face looked strained.

I'd heard a lot about this Percy Jackson guy. He was practically a living legend according to most people at Camp Half-Blood. He was the only living demigod child of Poseidon, not counting his Cyclops half-brother Tyson – although Cyclopes technically didn't count as demigods. At the age of twelve, he had single-handedly defeated – and ripped a horn off, to boot – the Minotaur. He had been completely untrained at the time, with no weapons. I hadn't even really believed that one until Annabeth had shown me the Minotaur's horn Percy had hung on his wall in the Poseidon cabin.

He had returned the Master Bolt to Zeus, who was kind of my father but in Greek form. At thirteen, Percy had sailed into the Sea of Monsters, killed Polyphemus and rescued the Golden Fleece. The next year, he had held the weight of the very sky. Annabeth had told me, getting a little choked up, that it had almost killed her as well as almost pulling him to Death's door. She had shown me the small silvery lock of hair that she had from her ordeal, and said that Percy had the same, but hidden under the rest of his hair. The year after that, he had ventured into the Labyrinth itself. And finally, when he was fifteen going on sixteen, had killed the Titan Kronos, after bathing in the River Styx itself and receiving the curse of Achilles.

I was feeling a bit jealous, actually. This Percy had had many more quests and scrapes with danger than I had. I was expecting a big, egotistical guy, with muscles like soccer balls.

"Calling attention to all of my wonderful passengers!" came a chirpy voice through the intercom. "It is your Lord and Captain, the Supreme Master McCool of the Argo II, Leo Valdez!"

"REPAIR BOY!" came a voice behind me. I turned to find Piper yelling into the intercom. Piper is the gorgeous daughter of Aphrodite, but she loved to play it down. Today she was wearing her Camp Half-Blood t-shirt, a pair of grey skinny jeans, and her dark brown hair had several thin braids in it and a narrow band on the crown of her head, like some sort of Native American warrior queen.

"Your Lord and Captain, the Supreme Master McCool _Repair Boy _of the Argo II, Leo Valdez," Leo amended. Then added, "that cool with you, Beauty Queen?"

"If you ever cool me that again," Piper replied, "I am going to personally strangle you with your own duct tape."

"Well, anyway," Leo said, "I shall be landing the Argo II in – er, I don't know – thirty seconds?"

Annabeth immediately grabbed onto the nearest pillar.

"Oh, relax," Leo said. "I'm not that bad a driver – _ARGH_!"

I took that as the signal 'hold onto the nearest thing fixed down you can because we're about to crash'.

Leo steered us, with extreme difficulty, into a free spot on the field below. The Romans all backed away, looking nervous and hostile. _My friends. My family. _I scanned the crowd, drinking in their faces. Reyna! I could see Reyna, standing at the front in her praetor's toga, arms folded, looking disapproving.

"GODS, LEO!"

Thalia, my older sister, came stumbling onto the deck as the Argo II came to a halt and stopped jerking. Technically, she's a daughter of Zeus while I was a son of Jupiter, but it was complicated. She was wearing a black t-shirt with the slogan '_Care Bears Kill_' on it along with the motif of an orange Care Bear with its flesh falling off, holding a blood splattered axe. It was a very graphic t-shirt. She was also wearing ripped black skinny jeans, black biker boots, and her silvery Hunter ski jacket, unzipped, and her silver Lieutenant's braided circlet on top of her spiky black hair.

"LEO," she screamed into the intercom, looking slightly green, "REMIND ME NEVER TO LET YOU DRIVE AGAIN. EVER."

"Bit harsh," I heard Leo mutter.

Thalia began rubbing her head as Clarisse joined us. Clarisse is a daughter of Ares, and the biggest, brawniest girl you'll possibly ever meet. She has straggly brown hair in a stubby ponytail, wearing her orange Camp t-shirt and ripped, frayed jeans under her Greek battle armour. Clarisse looked pale and slightly sweaty, but not extremely nauseous.

Annabeth looked at me. She looked so desperate I couldn't stand it and I gave her a quick hug. She loved this Percy so much that she couldn't hide it, no matter how hard she tried. The first thing she'd done when she'd met me was demand that I change into her boyfriend. I'd noticed tear stains on her orange Camp Half-Blood t-shirt since. She'd added a pair of plain blue denim shorts and greyish trainers to it today, as if she was so anxious to see Percy that she hadn't given a second thought to her outfit. Which, I'm guessing, is exactly what she did.

She pulled away from me, sniffing slightly, and tugged at a grey hairband she had around her wrist. She scooped her hair into a messy ponytail and wiped her eyes.

"Ready?"

Nico and Leo had joined us. Nico is the only living child of Hades, and he freaks me out a little. When he was about ten, he'd lost his only family – his older sister, Bianca, who had joined the Hunters of Artemis and then been killed in a junkyard, the same year that Percy Jackson had borne the weight of the sky. Nico had never quite recovered, I think. He was deathly pale with dark shadows under his eyes, and slightly matted black hair. He was wearing a black leather jacket and black jeans, looking a smaller, boy version of Thalia. He'd shadow-travelled – his way of putting it – up from Camp Jupiter to the Argo II to see us down.

Leo had lightly browned skin and a mop of curls. His cheeky grin and nuts behaviour made him the life of the party. He wears a tool belt all the time – a gift from his father Hephaestus. His Camp Half-Blood t-shirt was way too big and his jeans sagging, but he seemed to like it that way.

Grover was the last to join the party. The faun – sorry, satyr – was a nervous thing with brown goat's legs, brown curly hair (on his head), small horns, and a white t-shirt with a tree on it and a set of pan pipes dangling from his neck. He was twiddling his Rasta cap between his fingers. He was one of Percy's best friends and has an – what d'you call it? – empathy link with him.

Annabeth looked at Nico, who had spoken. She took a deep breath and nodded. You could see the worry building up in her eyes.

"Don't worry," I said. "It'll be fine."

"What if he's forgotten me?" Annabeth murmurs, looking stricken. "I know he has amnesia...but...would he really forget me?"

"He won't have," Thalia said. "Percy loved you more than anything."

Grover nodded.

Annabeth took another breath. "Let's go. Leo, lower the gangplank."

"Righty-ho!" Leo sprang to action, twirling a small wheel on the wall nearby. There was a loud creaking and the wall to our left opened up, a gangplank lowering gracefully onto the grass outside.

"I'll go first," I offered. "They all know me."

They all nodded.

I squared my shoulders and walked out.

The Romans were all staring at me. There was a collective gasp and I knew they'd recognized me. I stood near the end of the gangplank as the Greeks followed me. I could see the rustle passing through the crowd, the hands reaching for weapons, as they saw the unfamiliar faces and orange t-shirts.

"Jason." Reyna's indifferent voice rang out, even from the some fifty metres we stood away from each other. The other praetors lined up beside her. I didn't even look at them. "How glad we are to see you back and alive."

There was a sudden movement beside me. Annabeth stumbled forwards, past me, towards the Romans, as if in a trance. Her face had a look of wonder.

There was a sudden hush.

"Percy!" Her strangled cry carried in the silence. She began to run.

_Annabeth, don't! _I wanted to scream, but I didn't. She'd obviously seen Percy. I looked at the crowd, trying to guess who he was.

"Anna...Annabeth?" an uncertain male voice came back. It was deep, but not rumbling. The silence was still there, the two voices the only ones audible. Not even the wind seemed to be blowing.

"_Percy!_" she practically screamed, and broke into a sprint, arms held out.

What in Jupiter's name was that praetor doing?

Wait.

The boy – the praetor - began to run as well, arms held out.

This must be Percy Jackson.

He had replaced me as praetor?

But this thought was shoved from my head as I watched Percy and Annabeth.

Percy was a tall guy, maybe about my height – an inch or two taller, perhaps, but otherwise, not what I was expecting. He was relatively ordinary looking – handsome, I suppose, if you looked at it from a girl's point of view. He had a mess of black hair (hiding the grey one, I remembered), and very deep green eyes. He was very fit, muscles visible but not bulging.

His arms flew around Annabeth, and I could see the tears streaming down her face as he picked her up, her legs kicking. They held each other tight for an almost impossibly long time, clasping each other like they were afraid the other would disappear, not saying anything at all. Percy wasn't crying but his eyes were definitely damp.

Leo wolf-whistled and Piper elbowed him hard in the ribs.

Then Percy set Annabeth down. His arms were still circled around her. Annabeth removed hers from around his neck and gave him a hard punch in the arm.

I saw him wince slightly as Annabeth started yelling at him.

"PERSEUS JACKSON, YOU FISH HEADED, SEAWEED BRAINED IDIOT!" she yelled. "WE'VE SEEN NOR HEARD NOTHING OF OR FROM YOU FOR EIGHT MONTHS _– EIGHT MONTHS_! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT WE'VE DONE TO TRY AND FIND YOU! YOU – "

Percy took hold of each side of her face with his hands and put his forehead against hers. "My Wise Girl," he chuckled, and his voice sounded thick. "Angry at the dumb things I do, as always."

Annabeth stopped yelling instantly and held his arms with her hands. "My Seaweed Brain," she said, her voice breaking slightly. "Doing dumb things that make me angry, as always."

They stood there, silent, breathing in each other, eyes closed, lost in their own little world. I heard Piper sniffling slightly behind me.

Reyna coughed slightly. Percy and Annabeth didn't break away from each other.

I stepped forward.


	2. Introductions

JASON'S P.O.V

"Hello, Camp Jupiter," I said. "I am the, ahem, _former _praetor, Jason Grace, son of Jupiter. I was recently taken and wiped of memories by the goddess Juno, although I have been recovering them. These," I gestured behind me, "are my friends. A satyr and demigods. _Greek _demigods. From Camp Half-Blood."

The crowd begins talking disbelievingly all at once. I can hear snatches of conversation.

"Jason Grace? I've heard of him."

"Yeah, he disappeared and got replaced by that Percy Jackson."

"_Greek demigods_?"

"He's pulling some kind of joke."

"But I thought the Greeks all died out!"

Reyna steps forward, throwing up a hand. The crowd falls silent.

"Jason," she says, frowning, "you are one of my most trusted praetors, yet I have a hard time believing that these are Greek demigods. Our ancestors said they died out long ago."

"They said that to keep the camps from fighting each other," I said. "Remember last year? When they said that the gods defeated Kronos? They didn't. The Greek demigods did, while we were fighting Krios."

More gasps.

"They defeated _Kronos?_" Reyna said, looking horror-struck for a moment before cold indifference settles over her face again. She's taken a disliking to them already, I realized. Reyna hates being bested by anyone, and the fact that a different group of demigods had killed a much bigger threat than we had was a heavy blow to her self-esteem.

"Yes," I said. "Believe me now. These Greeks saved Olympus and Manhattan, and they mean us no harm. They came to recover one of their own – Percy Jackson. And because of the Prophecy."

Reyna looked like she was having a hard time taking it all in.

The silence broke quickly.

"_Percy_!" Grover bleated, and started pelting towards the still-entwined Percy and Annabeth.

ANNABETH'S P.O.V

My Seaweed Brain.

I had him back.

I breathed him in – that familiar smell of the ocean. Those eyes seemed to be devouring me. I had him again – after eight long, painful months.

"You owe me eight months of kissing, you know," I breathe to him.

He smiles that infuriating yet sweet smile.

There is a sudden, goat-like yelp of Percy's name and Grover barrels into him, knocking him out of my arms and onto the ground.

Grover dances around Percy's fallen body, making little goat noises of excitement.

"Hey, G-Man!" Percy wheezes, the wind knocked out of him by the fall. "Your horns have grown."

He clambers to his feet with my help and gives a bear hug to Grover, who was going bonkers.

"P – Percy!" he bleated. "I missed you, man! Juniper sends her love!"

"I'm looking forward to seeing her again," Percy says, but his eyes are on me. I sigh contentedly.

"Oi, Kelp Head!"

Thalia tackles Percy to the ground as well and sits on top of him, poised to slap. "Annabeth was doing her nut, idiot!" She gives him a feeble punch on the shoulder before jumping from him and helping him up.

"What a nice greeting," Percy groans, rubbing his ribs. "Good to see you too, Pinecone Face."

Thalia laughs and envelops him in a quick hug.

Clarisse marches up. "Hey, punk," she says, scowling. "I'm not too thrilled to see you either."

"Brilliant," Percy says cheerfully. "C'mon, you know you can't resist a hug." He opens his arms.

"Get lost, Prissy Fish Head!" Clarisse snarls, poking her spear at him. But then she suddenly gives him a fist bump instead. Percy looks as surprised as I am. "I've missed having someone to beat at Capture the Flag," she says, a note of laughter in her voice.

"In your dreams, Boar Breath," Percy chuckles.

Jason, Piper and Leo come down the hill towards us.

"Hey," Percy says. "You guys are new. I'm Percy – "

" – Jackson, we know," Jason butts in. He smiles. "Heard a lot about you and your antics from Annabeth and that lot."

"Really?" Percy raises an eyebrow and looks at me. I blush and tuck myself under his arm.

"I'm Jason Grace," Jason says.

"Grace? As in – "

"Yes," Thalia says. "He's my little brother."

Percy chuckles. "Little, indeed. He's about half a foot taller than you, Pinecone Face."

Thalia gives him a small smack on the arm. "Button it, Kelp Head."

"Hey, I'm Leo Valdez, Captain Awesome Sauce of the Argo II!" Leo says, jumping about like he was on a sugar high.

"What he means is," Piper says exasperatedly, "he's Leo Valdez, son of Hephaestus. I'm Piper McLean, daughter of Aphrodite."

"Aphrodite, eh?" Percy says. His eyes go up to the sky and his face goes serious. "I knew a very brave Aphrodite girl once – and a Hephaestus boy..."

Clarisse looks like she might punch something.

Jason, Piper and Leo look confused at Percy's seriousness and Clarisse's sudden anger.

"I'll tell you guys later," I mouth at them, and give Percy a little shake. "Hey, Seaweed Brain. Snap out of it."

He shakes his head like he's trying to get rid of water in his ears and squeezes me closer. "Want me to show you around, Wise Girl? There's some architecture here you'd probably love."

I look up into his gorgeous face and nod. I don't doubt him.

I take his cheeks in my palms and give him a long, lingering kiss.

Leo gives a whoop and Grover a nervous chuckle.

Percy breaks away from it, eyes shut, looking like he'd just eaten the best chocolate fudge sundae ever in the history of the planet.

"Ah, my Wise Girl," he says, wrapping both arms around my. I ball his t-shirt and the front of his praetor's toga in my fists. "What would I ever do without you?"


End file.
